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YOURS    OR    MINE. 


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TO    SHOW    THE    TRUE  BASIS    OF  PROPERTY,  AND  THE        % 

CAUSES    OF    ITS    UNEQUAL    DISTRIBUTION.  § 


—•-©-♦    — 


BY   E.    H.    HEYWOOD, 


PRESIDENT  OP  •  i/1 

> 

THE  NEW-ENGLAND   LABOR-REFORM   LEAGUE,  S 

K 

AXD  AtJTHOE  OP  ^ 


AN  ECLIPSE  OF  FAITH;"    "THE  PEOPLE;"    '"THE  GOOD  OP    EVIL;"    "  COM- 
MON  SENSB-"    "IS.MS;"    "THE  LABOR  PARTY;  " 
WITH  OTHER  ADDRESSES.' 


TWENTIETH    THOUSAND. 


BOSTON: 

I 

PRINTED    AT    THE    OFFICE    OF    "WEEKLY    AMERICAN 

WORKMAN," 

'§) 

g,                                                                    37i»      CORNHILL. 

OT^                                                       18G9. 

^^T-^^v§ve^8^       Th^    Greatest    of  A.11    Serves    .All. 

*^&W<Z/(v)S 

_•._>-.                 .-            .,..--           ... _. 

YOURS    OR    MINE. 


a:n~    ESSAY, 

TO    SHOW    THE    TRUE  BASIS    OF  PROPERTY,  AND  THE 
CAUSES   OF   ITS   UNEQUAL   DISTRIBUTION. 


BY   E.    H.    HEYWOOD, 


PRESIDENT  OF 


THE  NEW-ENGLAND   LABOR-REFORM  LEAGUE 


AND  AUTHOR  OF 


; AN  ECLIPSE  OF  FAITH;"    "THE  PEOPLE; "    "THE  GOOD  OF    EVIL;"    "COM 

MON  SENSE;"    "ISMS;"    "THE  LABOR  PARTY  ;  » 

WITH  OTHER  ADDRESSES. 


TWENTIETH    THOUSAND. 


BOSTON: 

PRINTED    AT    THE    OFFICE    OF    "WEEKLY    AMERICAN    WORKMAN,' 
3  7  4,      CORNHILL. 

1869. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1869,  by 

E.  H.  HEYWOOD, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Magaftchusetti. 


YOURS  OR  MINE 


Everything,  from  the  body  one  wears,  to  the  world  he  lives  in,  is* 
subject  to  the  claim  of  ownership  ;  an  object  of  common  desire,  and 
the  means  of  universal  comfort,  property,  is  yet  the  source  of  such 
general  and  ominous  conflict,  that  an  intelligent  sense,  .both  of  its 
just  and  unjust  claims,  should  guide  further  steps  towards  order  and 
progress.  Especially  does  an  issue  now  interrogating  us,  an  issue 
fraught  with  gravest  interests  and  threatening  overturn,  in  comparison 
with  which,  all  former  revolutions  are  insignificant  — the  labor  ques- 
tion require  this.  It  is  ot  little  use  to  discuss  "  The  Rights  of 
Labor,"  "  The  Rights  of  Capital,"  "  Eight  Hours,"  "  Demand  and  Sup- 
ply,"" Free  Competition,"  "  Co-operation,"  "  Cheap  Money,"  "  Specie 
Payments,"  "  Public  Faith,"  "  Repudiation,"  or  other  war-cries  in- 
scribed on  the  banners  of  hostile  interests,  until  we  have  determined, 
with  some  degree  of  exactness,  what  is  right  between  these  contend- 
ing parties,  on  what  grounds  we  may  hold  or  dispose  of  property,  and 
what  causes  its  unequal  distribution.  Whether  the  labor  movement 
turns  out  to  be  merejy  anew  assault  of  destitute  assertion  on  vested 
interests  ;  a  raid  of  the  have-nothings  on  the  have-somethings,  to  end 
in  defeat,  and  the  handing  of  the  American  people  over  to  the  dark 
fate  of  masses  in  older  nations  ;  or  a  decisive  step  towards  fundamen- 
tal equity,  —  depends  much  upon  a  correct  answer  of  this  inquiry. 
Hardly  hoping  to  succeed,  when  so  many  others  have  failed,  I  yet  am 
not  at  liberty  to  decline  investigating  a  question  which  so  deeply  con- 
cerns individual  duty  and  social  destin}'. 

Most  people  see  truth,  but  see  it  so  rarely  with  a  sense  of  moral 
obligation  to  obey  if,  that  reform  is  still  the  battle  of  a 
few  believers  with  many  unbelievers.     That  service  is  the     labor, 
source  of  wealth,  that  labor  creates  all  values  equitably     the 
vendible,  is  so  generally  conceded  in  political  science,  and     source 
the  popular  sense  of  right,  argument  in  its  defence  seems     of 
unnecessary.     Yet  struggle  to  make  that  truth  the  basis  of    wealth. 
practical  life,  —  perhaps  the  gravest  moral  issue  which  has 
claimed  the  attention  of  men  since  Calvary  —  will  stir  all  nations  pro- 
foundly.    The  claim  of  equality  before  God,  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
followed  by  demand  for  equality  before  the  law  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  has  now  to  prove  its  sincerity  by  establishing  equality  in  law 
and  custom.     What  one  finds   in  arriving  on  the  earth,  —  air,  light, 


4  YOURS   OR   MINE. 

soil,  sea,  mines,  forest,  bird,  quadruped,  all  objects  of  value  or  use,  un- 
modified by  human  skill,  —  may  be  classed  as  natural  wealth,  the  free 
inheritance  which  beneficent  Providence  bequeathes  to  all  His  children. 
What  this  immigrant  from  the  realm  of  space  produces  after  landing, 
here,  —  hearth,  hammock,  food,  church,  town,  mills,  roads,  post-office, 
newspapers,  telegraph,  all  matter  penetrated  and  improved  by  mind,  — 
is  artificial  wealth.  The  work  done,  sharpening  a  stake,  building  a 
city,  having  a  dream,  writing  a  poem,  service  contributed,  comfort  sacr  i- 
liced,  originates  the  claim  to  ownership  or  property,  and  defines  its 
nature  and  limits.  In  equity,  one  owns  what  he  has  earned,  or  re- 
ceived as  the  free  gift  of  another's  earnings  ;  to  claim  more,  is  an 
invasion  of  those  natural  resources  which  justice  holds  free  and  com- 
mon, or  fraudulent  seizure  of  the  fruits  of  others'  toil. 

But  this  possessive  case  has  also  an  objective  form  :  others  labored, 
we  have  entered  into  the  results.  Every  stroke  of  work 
pre-efeort  is  the  resultant  of  numberless  preceding  forces.  Many 
and  pre-  fortunes  were  made  by  the  use  of  machinery,  the  in- 
occupancxl  ventors  of  which  died  in  the  poor-house.  One  builds  a 
house  in  a  week  ;  but  in  the  materials,  tools,  and  skill 
used,  centuries  unite  to  construct  and  equip  the  carpenter  for  his  work 
—  the  clothes  on  his  person,  the  food  in  his  stomach  —  his  body 
brought  into  the  world,  at  such  cost  of  pain,  that  his  mother  expe- 
rienced deeper  meaning  of  the  word  "  labor"  than  he  ever  dreamed 
of — flesh  and  blood  borrowed,  for  all  animal  substances  coming  from 
surrounding  elements,  if  plant,  water,  earth,  air,  should  lay  hands  on 
their  own,  they  would  leave  him  no  body  to  live  in  —  the  spark  of  life 
animating  his  house  of  clay  —  all  derived.  Though  he  drove  every 
nail,  and  bought  eveiy  fibre  of  material,  will  the  man  be  impertinent, 
impious  enough,  to  say  he  built  the  house?  Still,  though  many  fore- 
workers  may  dispute  his  claim,  he  produced  the  concrete  result;  and 
societ}r  allows  him  a  title.  The  tenure  of  mere  pre-occupancy,  or  pur- 
chase, by  shuffling  the  cards  of  "supply  and  demand,"  with  little  or 
no  valid  labor-claim,  is  so  general,  that  property  is  timid,  fears  ques- 
tions, fears  an  interrogation-point  more  than  a  thousand  bayonets; 
goes  info  partnership  with  sin,  with  slavery,  war,  forgery,  speculation  ; 
so  that,  looking  into  any  popular  evil,  property  slams  the  door  in 
your  face.  But  pre-occupancy,  as  of  land  and  tools,  to  use  them,  bene- 
fits society  and  is  acquiesced  in. 

Providence,  however,  holding  stock  in  both  men  and  things,  teaches 

individual  self-sacrifice  to  the  public  good.  In  view  of 
puheic  Deity  being  omnipotent,  avarice  wonders  how  one  can  be  so 
GOOD.      strong,  and  not  steal.     Yet  it  is  the  essence  of  power  to  scorn 

appropriation  ;  one  is  great  in  proportion  to  his  ability  of 
self-support  and  to  assist,  others;  deeds  which  live  in  history  were 
voluntary  and  gratuitous;  those  who  work  for  money,  cease  when 
the  pay  stops;  those  Who  work  for  love  of  it,  hold  on.  God  is  God, 
because  lie  works  for  all,  and  for  nothing.  To  see  poverty  successfully 
dci'n-d,  strengthens  one.  I  was  sad  one  day,  having  no  money  to  buy 
3,  but  recovered  on  meeting  cheerful  faces  going  barefoot.  The 
loafer, — who  is  I  his  free,  fat,  reckless  fellow,  in  no  anxiety  about  where 
he  shall  get  his  dinner? 


YOURS    OR    MINE.  0 

Our  soldiers  fought  for  the  country,  died  to  save  property  and  gov- 
ernment; yet  the  "  army-blue "  covers  poor  men,  and  from  lowest 
bog  of  "  Dismal  Swamp"  to  highest  peak  of  Rocky  Mountains,  no- 
where  can  the  soldier's  widow  rest  her  foot,  but  property,  in  the  name 
of  law,  may  not  order  her  off.  She  may  own  a  farm  in  dreamland, 
though  not  in  the  "Union"  it  bereft  her  of  all  to  save.  That  most 
useful  of  human  beings,  the  farmer,  impresses  a  transient  labor-title 
only  on  the  surface,  and  a  few  inches  below,  tills  the  mere  rind,  the 
mould  of  earth  ;  but  those  who  never  turn,  or  intend  to  turn  a  sod, 
fclaim  to  "  own"  land  from  centre  of  globe  to  stars.  "The  land  shall 
not  be  sold  forever,  for  the  land  is  mine,  saith  the  Lord."  Jewish 
theocracy,  in  behalf  of  natural  right,  which  existed  before  human 
government,  and  will  survive  it,  every  fiftieth  year,  with  trump  of 
jubilee,  proclaimed  liberty  "throughout  all  the  land  unto  all  the  in- 
habitants thereof,"  —  liberty  of  person,  and  also  of  property;  houses, 
lands,  nothing  could  be  sold  beyond  the  day  of  Jubilee,  when  con- 
tracts of  sale  ceased,  debts  were  expunged,  and  "every  man  returned 
unto  his  possession."  Lev.  xxv.  10,  23.  27,  and  28.  One  of  the  ear- 
liest ideas  received  from  a  deeply  religious  father,  was,  when  over- 
looking our  mountain-side  home,  he  said  to  the  slip  of  a  boy  at  his 
side,  "  Those  buildings,  the  land  and  stock,  custom  and  the  courts 
call  mine  ;  but  I  am  only  a  trustee,  holding  them  for  others'  good,  not 
merely  for  the  use  of  a  family,  but  the  world  at  large,  as  the  Lord, 
wills."  The  followers  of  St.  Simon,  of  Owen,  Fourier;  the  Perfec- 
tiouists  of  Oneida;. the  increasing  and  marvellously  wealthy  disciple- 
ship  of  Mother  Ann  Lee,  called  Shakers,  —  wherever  devout  souls 
lift  the  standard  of  creative  right  against  usurping 'fact,  they  obey  the 
same  impulse  with  which  immediate  Divine  presence,  in  the  Pentecostal 
scene,  inspired  believers  to  be  "of  one  heart  and  one  soul,  none  of 
them  saying  that  ought  of  the  things  he  possessed  was  his  own,  for 
they  had  all  things  in  common."  While  these  cases  by  no  means 
prove  communism  a  solution  of  the  property  problem,  they  are  most 
conclusive  evidence  against  the  validity  of  individual  or  corporate 
claim  to  ownership  beyond  actual  earnings.  The  interests  of  living 
creators  and  present  public  welfare  overrule  traditional  titles;  for 
the  more  complete  right  to  property,  which  present  labor  confers,  is 
valid  against  the  transient  claims  of  pre-elfort  and  pre-occupancy." 

Of  our  workers,  one  raises   wheat,  another  makes  shoes,  another 
keeps  house,  or  washes  clothes.     Since  all  produce  more  of 
some  lvalues,  and  no  one  creates  the  variety  consumed,     basis  of 
they  exchange  commodities.     The  farmer  needs  a  dinner,     ex- 
a  bed  to  sleep  in,  whole  and  clean  clothing  for  his  person,     change. 
The  cook,  the  chambermaid,  the  seamstress,  the  washer, 
supply   his  wants  ;    or  the  housekeeper,  skilled  in   many  ways,  per- 
sonifies all  these  artists  in  one.     The  shoemaker  desires  to  trade  his 
goods  for  provisions,  clothing,  or  carpenter-work.     How  shall  com- 
merce occur,  so  as  to  recognize  the  service  of  all,  and  defraud  none? 
Evidently,  the  cost  of  labor  is  the  equitable  basis  of  exchange.     The 
fanner  and  carpenter  "  change  works  ;  "  sewing-girls,  rich  in  skilled  la- 
bor, say,  "You  trim  my  bonnet,  and  I  will  cut  }'our  dress  ;  "  and  present- 
ly, on   the   sidewalk,  thej'  outshine   daughters   of  Luxury,  who   have 


6  TOURS   OR   MINE. 

nothing  but  money  they  did  not  earn.  One  boy  helps  another  pick 
chips,  if  he  will  help  him  play.  The  exchange  of  flour  from  the  West, 
for  fabrics  of  the  East ;  of  cotton  from  Carolina,  for  Massachusetts 
"  fanaticism  ;  "  of  tea  from  China,  for  English  rebellion  ;  of  American 
reapers  and  mowers,  for  German  ideas,  legitimate  trade,  the  world 
over,  is  barter  of  service  for  service  in  the  concrete  form  of  com- 
modities. Goods  cannot  be  conveyed  from  producer  to  consumer  with- 
out labor ;  so  merchants  are  as  necessary  a*s  mechanics,  or  farmers, 
and  their  service  and  risk  must  be  included  in  the  full  ultimate  cost. 
Since  it  is  the  right  and  for  the  interest  of  purchasers  to  choose, 
what  is  cheapest  and  best,  the  most  accomplished  workmen  will  have 
a  natural  precedence,  while  the  unskilled  will  be  ruled  out  of  the  trade 
in  question,  and  employed  in  what  nature  and  culture  tit  them  to  do 
best.  To  those,  therefore,  denying  that  u  cost  is  the  limit  of  price," 
because  labor  is  sometimes  misdirected,  we  reply,  that  while  their 
objection  is  valid  against  paying  the  full  cost  of  incompetent  work, 
it  is  more  potent  against  one's  right  to  take  more  than  the  full  cost 
of  skilled  labor.  But  this  cost  being  arrived  at,  we  have  the  maxi- 
mum price  which  may  be  equitably  put  upon  any  commodity,  and  find 
value  in  exchange,  like  the  claim  to  property,  limited  by  moral  law,  to 
the  amount  of  labor  invested. 

Service  being  the  primary  title  to  property,  we  will  now  notice  its 

rights  in  the  form  of  profit,  rent,  and  interest ;  which  may 
'profit.         be  termed  the  secondary  claims  of  labor,  or  the  adjutant 

services  of  property.  Since  products  are  distributed  to 
consumers  through  wages,  rent,  and  profits,  or  dividends  ;  and  since 
the  warmest  partizans  of  capital  admit  that  the  wages  class,  under  the 
present  regime,  do  not  get  any  more  than  they  earn,  —  the  elements 
of  inequality  we  are  in  search  of  must  be  concealed  in  the  distribu- 
ting agencies  now  to  be  examined.  Not  to  go  to  sea  without  a  com- 
pass, to  arrive  at  correct  conclusions,  we  must  test  them  by  the 
cardinal  principle  agreed  to  in  the  outset,  —  that  all  wealth  is  the 
product  of  physical  or  intellectual  labor.  Whether  the  reader  is  su- 
perfluously rich  or  "  independently  poor,"  1  ask  him  to  join  me  in 
flinging  aside  old  opinions,  and  follow  truth  wherever  she  leads.  Even 
the  noble  desire  to  help  others  is  sin,  if  it  assumes  to  give  what  one 
does  not  honestly  own.     The  world  needs  justice,  not  benevolence  ; 

"  For  he  that  feeds  men  serveth  few ; 
He  serves  all  who  dares  be  true." 

The  right  of  the  strong  over  the  weak,  is  the  right  to  assist  them  ;  of 
the  well  over  the  sick,  is  the  right  to  cure  them  ;  of  the  wise  over  the 
ignorant,  is  the  right  to  teach  them. 

If  profit  means  what  force  and  fraud  can  clutch,  the  ancient  pro- 
verbs,  —  "  Trade  is  war  ;  "  "  As  a  nail  between  the  stone-joints,  so  does 
sin  stick  fast  between  buying  and  selling,"  —  become  true.  But  as  an 
honest  agent  of  distribution,  the  merchant  is  a  powerful  aid  to  pro- 
duction, and  illustrates  the  modern  maxim,  "  Exchange  is  civiliza- 
tion." So  the  manufacturer,  the  banker,  the  landlord,  each  is  a  source 
of  immense  good  to  society  as  a  worker  ;  but,  what  sadder  sight  under 
heaven,   than  a  man  of  native  ability,  using  the  superior  intellect 


T0UJ5.S    OR   MINE.  7 

God  gave  him  to  overreach  his  weaker  fellows  !  To  "  make  "  mone}', 
otherwise  than  by  earning  it,  is  the  business  of  counterfeiters.  Hence 
profit  is  inadmissable,  except  for  work  done,  or  risk  incurred. 

It  often  occurs  that  creators   of  value  are   unable   to  exchange 
products  directly,  and  some  representative  is  necessary. 
The  party  in  arrears  recognizes  the  unadjusted  balance     nature 
by  giving  an  order  on  his  own  service  or  property :  the     and 
order  is  current,  or  will  be  received,  in  further  exchanges,     office 
so  long  as  the  issuer  guarantees  its  redemption.     In  this     of 
way,  what  is  called  "  currency  "  legitimately  originates,     monet. 
Money,  therefore,  is  an  acknowledgment,  a  certificate  of 
value  rendered,  for  which^  the  issuer  thereof  (not  community  or  gov- 
ernment) is  bound  to  pay  equivalent  for  equivalent,  to  the  holder,  on 
demand.     It  may  consist  of  bricks  of  tea,  as  in  Tartary ;  red  cloth, 
as  in  Timbuctoo;  codfish,  as  in  Iceland  or  Newfoundland;  nails,  as 
in  Scotland  ;  tobacco,   as  in  Virginia ;  bullets  and  wampum,  as  in 
Massachusetts;  iron,  as  in   Sparta;   leather,  as  in  Carthage;  slaves 
and  cattle,  as  among  Anglo-Saxons  and  Greeks ;  or  silver,  as  now,  in 
oriental ,  and  gold  and  paper,  in  occidental  nations.     No  matter  what 
the  material,  if  the  faith  of  the  issuing  party  is  kept ;  if  the  thing 
promised,  the  value  signified,  is  forthcoming  when  the  sign  is  pre- 
sented.    Since,  in  obedience  to  its  derivation  from  the  Latin  verb, 
moneo,  to  remind,  mone}7  represents  unpaid  service,  and  also  is  used 
as  a  standard  of  common  reference,  in  estimating  value,  a  unit  of 
measurement  is  necessary.     This  should  have  some  relation  to  what 
is  to  be  measured.     A  bushel  is  a  given  quantity,  esti- 
mated by  the  space  it  fills  ;    a  pound  is  known  by  its     what 
weight  or  gravity  towards  the  centre  of  the  earth ;  but  a    is  a 
"dollar"  is  a  legal  fiction,  having  no  definite  relation     dollar? 
either  to  quantity  or  quality.     It  is  named  from  the  Swed- 
ish daler,  from  Dale  or  Dalebergh,  where  it  was  first  coined ;  or  from 
the  German  thaler,  from  thai,  a  vale ;  because  thalers  were  first  coined 
in  the  valley  of  Joachim.     Since,  as  Adam  Smith  well   observed, 
"  Labor  was  the  first  price,  the  original  purchase-money,  paid  for  all 
things,  and  is  the  ultimate  and  real  standard  by  which  they  must  be 
examined,  and   compared,"  evidently  it  should  furnish  the  unit  of 
measurement.     A  day's  labor,  or  some  other  conventional  amount  of 
service,  in  the  progress  of.  monetary  science,  will  probably  become 
that  unit.     But  it  is  within  the  purpose  of  this  inquiry,  to  notice  only 
the  fact,  that  a  dollar  serves  the  uses  of  business,  just  in  proportion 
as  it  is  a  reliable  representative  of  labor  or  property  ;  and  that  the 
inherent  value  of  the  substance  of  which  it  is  composed,  is  of  no  ac- 
count whatever  in  its  use  as  money,  provided  it  is  portable,  and  so 
cheap  and  unmonopolizable,  as  to  be  within  the  reach  of  all  having 
value  to  represent. 

Before  considering  rent  and  interest,  it  is  necessary  to  observe,  that, 
since  property  is  purely  an  artificial  creation,  it  has  no 
inherent  right   or   power  to  increase.     The   impressions    property 
of  human  effort  upon  material  substance  soon  fade  out ;     barns 
left,  alone,  property  decays  ;  frost,  fire,  rain,  rust,  —  all  its    nothing. 
natural  enemies,  —  so  incessantly  invade  it,  that  mere  self- 


8  YOURS   OR  MINE. 

preservation  requires  constant  nourishment  from  its  parent,  labor.  A 
house,  a  railroad,  a  carriage,  a  coat,  —  all  objects  of  human  creation,  — 
in  a  very  few  years,  decay  and  vanish.  Labor  tends  to  self-mainten- 
ance and  increase,  originates  the  causes  of  its  own  growth  ;  the  effort 
of  property  even  to  breathe,  kills  it,  for  oxygen  brings  dissolution. 
Labor  begins  naked,  and  becomes  opulent ;  property  begins  in  wealth, 
and  ends  in  ashes.  Hence,  however  much  ma}'  be  credited  to  its 
collateral  service,  property,  by  original  motive-power,  not  only  earns 
nothing,  but  is  dependent  on  labor  for  continued  existence.  The 
same  law  of  right  which  guarantees  the  owner  his  earnings  to  the 
uttermost  farthing,  forbids  him,  even  to  keep  his  property  alive,  the 
use  of  another's  industry,  without  paying  for  it.  The  claim  to  rent, 
therefore,  is  reduced  to  this  :  The  owner  of  a  house,  after 
rent.  it  has   paid  for  itself,  as   most  rentals  do   shortly,  may 

charge  for  its  use,  the  cost  of  his  labor,  in  transferring  it  to 
you,  and  the  amount  of  wear  and  tear,  minus  the  cost  of  insurance, 
the  cost  of  defence  against  the  natural  enemies  of  houses.  That  is,  if 
3'ou  return  it  to  him  as  good  as  you  took  it,  and  pay  him  for  the  labor 
of  leasing,  you  not  only  owe  him  nothing,  but  he  owes  3rou  for  keep- 
ing the  house  in  repair.  '  The  equitable  rent  of  a  farm,  a  spade,  a 
horse,  or  any  other  species  of  property,  ma}r  likewise  be  ascertained 
by  the  amount  of  service  rendered. 

Since  money  is  the  representative  of  property,  it  has  no  rights  su- 
perior to  that  of  which  it  is  the  exponent ;  and  interest, 
interest,     being  the  price  or  rent  of  money,  is  subject  to  the  same 
extok-         laws    as   property,    which    money   represents.      Interest, 
tion.  therefore,  like  rent,  contributes  nothing  to  the  support  of 

society  ;  but  is  a  tax  on  labor.  It  is  said  to  be  the  share 
of  capital  in  the  profits  of  business  ;  but,  truly  speaking,  it  shaves 
capitalists  out  of  just  earnings  ;  for,  as  the  demands  of  usury  increase, 
the  scope  and  profits  of  productive  enterprise  diminish.  When  banks 
get  into  marble  fronts,  labor  is  crowded  into  tenement  hovels  ;  as  the 
usurious  few  go  up,  the  useful  many  go  down.  If  Southern  planters 
pay  twenty-live  per  cent  on  money,  they  cannot  compete  with  Indian 
cottonists,  who  have  it  from  England  for  three,  li'  land  pays  two 
per  cent,  and  usury  asks  eight,  the  farmer  is  one  man  fighting  against 
four  ;  and  is  swept  in  among  the  4'  city  poor,"  of  whom  purblind  phil- 
anthropy asks,  "  Why  don't  you  go  to  the  country  ?  "  In  life-insur- 
ance, interest  serves  a  direct  and  beneficent?  purpose.  When  the  service 
and  risk  of  the  capitalist,  as  manufacturer,  merchant,  or  banker,  are 
paid,  what  further  claim  has  interest?  Evidently,  none  ;  for  we  have 
already  shown  profit,  except  as  it  represents  labor,  to  be  only 
another  name  for  plunder.  But  has  not  one  the  same  right  to  sell  his 
money  as  his  property?  Certainly  ;  he  may  sill  what  lie  owns;  and 
he  owns  what  he  has  earned.  I  loan  you  a  hundred  dollars  on  valid 
security  for  one  year;  if  it  is  promptly  returned,  when  due,  you  owe 
me  for  passing  it  out,  and  receiving  it  back  —  no  more,  since  that  is 
the  cost  of  labor  iu  the  transaction.  This  money,  if  honest,  repre- 
sents definite  value,  as  a  house,  a  farm,  or  a  year's  labor  ;  but  my 
loaning  it  to  you  does  not,  in  the  least,  disenable  the  property  it 
stands  for  to  perform  its  natural  functions.     The  house  shelters  its 


YOURS    OR  MINE.  ? 

occupants  ;  the  farm  loves  and  rewards  husbandry  the  same,  while  it 
is  the  basis  of  my  credit  which  assists  you.  Luxurious  mansions  and 
fragrant  gardens,  soft  apparel  and  princely  chariots,  are  beautiful 
objects  to  look  upon,  which  we  do  not  envy  owners'  possession  of ; 
would  that  all  who  wish,  could  enjoy  such  ease  and  opulence,  for  that 
is  legitimate  use  of  property.  But  in  allowing  these  fine  estates, 
through  interest,  to  enable  their  occupants  to  live  without  work,  so- 
ciety sanctions  monstrous  injustice ;  which  will  awaken  profound 
indignation,  when  once  popular  thought  is  fixed  on  it.  Some  oppose 
U»ury,  or  high  interest,  and  defend  low  rates  ;  but  the  difference  is  in 
degree,  not  in  kind ;  for  the  labor  and  risk  involved  being  paid  ;  all 
beyond  that  is  extortion.  As  well  argue  that  slavery  was  wrong  in 
ten  states,  but  right  and  constitutional  in  two  or  three.  Hence,  as 
an  invasion  of  abstract  justice,  interest  must  be  adjudged  crime  in 
the  court  of  conscience ;  and  the  right  to  meddle  with  it,  carries  with 
it  the  right  to  abolish  it  altogether. 

To  prove  a  thing  essentially  wrong,  is  quite  enough  to  convince 
those  whose  moral  sense  is  not  perverted  by  legal  and  cus- 
tomary fraud  ;  —  but  so  many  find  a  rule  of  faith  and  prac-     interest 
tice  in  traditional  authority,  it  is  well  to  show  that  inspired     forbid- 
writings  condemn  interest,  —  the  most  emphatic  among     den  by 
which,  are  the  stern  denunciations  of  the  Christian  Bible,     past 
"  Take  thou  no  usury  of  thy  brother  ;  but  fear  thy  God.     revela- 
.  .     Thou   shall  not  give   thy  money  upon   usury,  nor    tion. 
lend   thy   victuals    for    increase "   (Lev.   xxv.    36,  37). 
"Thou  shalt  not  lend   on  usury  to  thy  brother"  (Deut.  xxiii.  19). 
"Lord,  who  shall  abide  in  thy  tabernacle?  who  shall  dwell  in  thy 
holy  hill?     He  that  walketh  uprightly,  and  worketh  righteousness.  .  _.  . 
he  that  putteth  not  out  his  money  to  usury"  (Psalms  xv.  1,  2,  5). 
"  He  that  hath  not  given  forth  upon  usury,  neither  taken   any  in- 
crease, hath  withdrawn  his  hand  from  iniquity,  hath  executed  true 
judgment  between  man  and  man ;  ....  he  is  just,  he  shall  surely 
live,  saith  the  Lord  God  "  (Ezekiel  xviii.  8,  9).     "  If  ye  lend  to  them 
of  whom  ye  hope  to  receive,  what  thank  have  ye  ?    For  sinners  also 
lend  to  sinners,  to  receive  as  much  again.     But  love  ye  your  enemies, 
and  lend,  hoping  for  nothing  again  ;  and  ye  shall  be  children  of  the 
Highest"  (Luke  vi.  34,  35).     To  those  who  quote  in  reply, the  para- 
ble of  the  usurious  lord,  and  the  example  of  Jews  fleecing  strangers, 
I  have  only  to  say,  that,  in  shielding  sinful  practice  behind  scripture 
texts,  they  stand  with  defenders  of  chattel  bondage,  who  thus  proved 
slavery  a  "  divine   institution  ;  "  with  advocates  of  war,  who  preach 
Jesus,  and  practice  Joshua ;  with  polygamists  of  Utah,  and  keepers 
of  brothels  in  our  cities,  who  are  good  "  Christians,"  because  "  the 
wisest  man,"  Solomon,  and  other  patriarchs,  had  many  wives,  and 
numerous  concubines,  or  "  fancy  women,"  as  they  are  now  called. 
Interpreted  in  the  spirit  of  truth  and  humanity,  the  Bible  sanctions 
no  such  immoralities  ;  but  condemns  alike,  slavery,  war,  libertinism, 
and  usury.     The  fellowship  of  Bouddha,  Zoroaster,  and  Mahomet, 
with  the  Greek  and  Roman  churches,  who  compose  a  very  large  ma- 
jority of  the  professedly  religious  world,  all  put  usury  in  the  category 
of  forbidden  sin. 


10 


YOURS    OR  MINE. 


Turning  to  philosophers  and  moralists,  we  first  meet  that  pro- 
foundest  of  human  reasoners,  Aristotle  :   "  Money,  a  me- 
philoso-     dium  of  exchange,  is  by  nature  sterile,  and  should  have  no 
phers  legal  right  to  increase,  except  by  passing  through  some 

and  form  of  labor."     Cato  :  "  Usury  is  murder."    Dr.  Wilson, 

moral-        an  English  writer  of  1569  :  "  Taking  interest  is  a  greater 
ists  crime  than  taking  life  ;  for  while  the  murderer  kills  one, 

against       usury  swallows    whole    families,   communities,    and    na- 
!T-  tions."    Masse:  "  God,  nature,  reason,  scripture  ;  all  law, 

authors,  and  councils,  are  against  usury."  Fenton  :  "It 
was  never  even  defended,  for  fifteen  hundred  years  after  Christ." 
St.  Basil :  "  The  griping  usurer  gets  his  victim's  hand  to  paper,  and 
completes  his  wretchedness.  How  so?  By  dismissing  him  bereft  of 
libert}'."  Buxton  :  "  The  tired  earth  becomes  barren  ;  only  the  usur- 
er's money,  the  longer  it  breeds,  the  lustier ;  one  hundred  pounds, 
put  out  twenty  3rears  since,  is  grandmother  to  two  or  three  hundred 
children,  pretty  striplings,  able  to  beget  their  mother  again  in  a 
short  time."  Bacon :  "  It  exists  through  the  hardness  of  men's 
hearts."  Roman  law  decreed  it  an  aggravated  species  of  theft,  and 
punished  it  with  the  utmost  severity.  English  law,  from  Alfred  the 
Great,  down  till  the  moneyed  aristocracy  subsidized  the  moral  sense 
of  that  people  ;  and  statutes  in  almost  every  American  state,  bear  the 
same  testimoiry ;  reason,  religion,  history,  and  legislation,  unite  to 
condemn  usury  wrong  in  principle  and  extortion  in  practice. 

A  knowledge  of  the  means  by  which  property  may  be  equitably  ac- 
quired, now  enables  us  to  find  the  causes  of  its  unequal 
what  distribution  ;  to  look  into  this  millstone  of  poverty  which 

makes  hangs  about  the  neck  of  labor,  and  learn  why  wealth  re- 

workers     volves  into  cunning  hands,  which  produce  nothing ;  while  its 
rooR  ?  creators  are  poor.    Of  the  three  million  three  hundred  and 

fifty  thousand  inhabitants  of  London,  sixtj^  thousand  are 
beggars.  In  New-York  City,  a  careful  observer,  Peter  Cooper,  states 
that  poverty  increases  ten  times  faster  than  population,  —  a  fact  which 
cannot  be  explained  away  by  foreign  influx,  for  our  native  population 
is  breaking  down  the  most  rapidly ;  and  Commissioner  Wells  proves 
that  immigration  alone  has  added  not  less  than  five  hundred  and  eighty 
million  dollars  to  the  wealth  of  the  nation,  in  the  last  three  years. 
In  Boston,  multitudes  of  working-women  are  in  such  extreme  penury, 
that  life  itself  is  a  burden  ;  "  they  wait  for  death,  and  it  cometh  not ; 
they  rejoice  exceedingly  and  are  glad  when  they  find  the  grave." 
The  floating  statistics  of  life,  in  two  of  the  richest  and  most  enlight- 
ened nations,  reveal  conditions  and  tendencies,  which  may  well  shake 
one's  faith  in  accepted  principles  of  justice.  Social  classes  are 
made  of  one  blood,  children  of  the  same  impartial  Creator,  who  is  no 
respecter  of  persons.  To  say  poverty  and  crime  among  willing  . 
workers,  are  •■  necessary  evils,"  is  a  reassertion  of  the  old  infidelity 
to  right,  which  declared  chattel  bondage  the  natural  state  of  a  weaker 
race.  The  primary  cause  will  not  be  found  in  depravity  and  idleness 
of  the  industrial  classes,  for  the  opulent  few,  whose  business  it  is  to 
get  a  living  without  work,  have  their  full  share  of  these  disabilities. 
Thriftlessness  and  vice  cannot  be  charged  upon  the  great  mass  of  the 


YOURS   OR   MINE.  11 

people  ;  there  are  deeper  and  subtler  causes  of  their  degradation. 
Every  one  sees  that  those  whose  labor  makes  property,  and  whose 
votes  make  government,  have  little  enjoyment  of  either  ;  that  one 
rarely  acquires  a  competence,  unless  he  escapes  from  the  wages  class, 
and  somehow  is  enriched  b}T  others'  earnings.  It  is  so  natural  an  im- 
pulse to  strive  to  throw  off  burdens  of  poverty  and  debt,  that  one 
will  not  pay  rent,  interest,  or  profit  to  another,  longer  than  he  can 
avoid  it.  By  instinct,  also,  we  help  our  weaker  fellows,  unless  some 
special  bribe  makes  it  for  our  interest  to  assist  in  keeping  them  down. 
Hence,  the  inherent  vitality  of  human  nature,  and  its  robust  reap- 
pearing individuality,  which  is  at  once  the  pillared  strength,  on  which 
social  organism  rests  ;  and  an  explosive  protest  against  undue  mon- 
archism  would  prevent  such  centralization  of  property  as  has  oc- 
curred in  older  nations,  and  is  rapidly  taking  place  in  ours,  were  there 
not  some  special  means  by  which  speculative  cunning  gets  control  of 
the  main  sources  and  channels  of  wealth,  and  forces  them  to  bring 
grist  to  its  mill. 

This  injustice  consists  in  reducing  theft  to  the  fine  art  of  getting 
more  than  you  give  ;  in  the  practical  abandonment  of  the 
equitable  title  to  ownership  labor.     Substituting  advan-     stealing, 
tage   for   service,   in   accordance  with    the   questionable     a  fine 
maxim,  "  a  thing  is  worth  what  it  will  bring,"  men  hold     art. 
that  might  makes  right ;  that  one  may  justly  take  from 
another  what  his  necessities  compel  him  to  yield.     On  this  principle, 
exchange  becomes  a  species  of  pirac}'  where  there  is  not  only  no  in- 
tention to  render  equivalent  for  equivalent,  but  studied  effort  to  get 
the  largest  possible  amount  of  another's  service  or  property,  for  the 
least  possible  return.     Advantage-taking  is  erected  into  a  system,  a 
"  science;  "  and  privileged  parties,  absolved  from  moral  obligations, 
cease  to  exercise  the  generous  equity  of  rational  beings,  obedient  to 
essential  right,  and  make  cheating  a  matter  of  business.     Justice  and 
liberty,  supplanted  by  extortion  and  mastership,  the  producing  classes 
become  vassal  to  the  speculating  classes  ;  the  creators  of  wealth,  to  its 
cunning  possessors  ;  and  prevailing  fraud,  infecting  the  whole  body- 
politic,  makes  men  doubt  even  the  possibility  of  honesty,  and  believe 
poverty,  crime,  antagonism,  and  war,  still  in  the  realm  of  "  necessary 
evils  "where  the  powers  of  darkness  reign  supreme.     Hence  political 
economists,  in  ignoring  cost,  and  attempting  to  build  a  science  ex- 
clusively on  "value  in  exchange,"  have  chosen  a  basis  unstable  and 
treacherous,  —  a  negation  of  honest  service  and  moral  right. 
'  The    art   of  overreaching,   enacted   into  law,  makes   inevitable  a 
progressive  inequality  of  wealth,  the  chief  guarantee  of 
which  is  enforced  currency.     Since  money  is  the  common    despotic 
and  indispensable  agency  to  measure  products   and  dis-    money. 
tribute  them  to  consumers  ;  and  since  most  contracts  and 
exchanges  must  be  made  through  the  accepted  currency,  it  is  apparent, 
that   if  the   speculating   classes   get   control   of   this    medium,  and 
dictate  its  nature,  amount,  and  value,  they  are  masters  of  both  labor 
and  trade,  and  can  compel  us  to  pay  them  a  special  tax  on  the  chance 
to  do  business,  and  also  for  the  privilege  of  living.     Assuming  that 
money  represents  all  property  in  the  nation,  instead  of  the  property 


12  YOURS   OR  MINE. 

of  those  only  •who  issue  it,  they  bribe  government  to  endorse  the 
gigantic  usurpation,  and  thereby  are  enabled  to  produce  hard 
times,  bankruptcies,  panics,  and  wars  to  any  extent.  For,  like  thieves 
and  wreckers,  who,  on  battle-fields  and  desolate  coasts,  prowl  about 
to  plunder  the  pockets  and  denude  the  persons  of  dead  men.  money- 
changers reap  their  richest  harvests  in  public  disaster.  Knowing, 
that,  with  an  exclusive  and  irresponsible  currency  (though  it  is  not 
true  when  money  is  free  and  reliable,  as  I  shall  presently  show), 
prices  will  rise  with  inflation,  and  fall  with  contraction,  they  favor 
large  issues  to  carry  them  up  to  a  high  pitch,  when  they  sell  their 
property,  and  cry  out:  —  "Money  is  redundant;  contract  the  cur- 
rency !  "  Banks  refuse  discounts,  prices  fall  with  a  crash,  whelming 
credit,  honest  accumulations,  and  well-built  houses  in  general  ruin. 
It  is  estimated  that  ninety-seven  per  cent  of  business  men,  in  cities, 
and  eighty  per  cent  in  the  nation  at  large,  fail  at  least  once.  Holding 
money,  they  have  withdrawn  from  circulation  for  this  very  purpose, 
these  wreckers  now  appear  on  the  scene,  attend  forced  sales  they 
themselves  have  compelled,  bid  in  all  property  they  can  grasp,  and 
then  proceed  to  "  expand  the  currency,"  until  prices  are  again  at 
the  top-notch,  when  they  sell  out,  and  precipitate  another  "  panic." 
Indeed,  the  specie-machine  is  so  arranged,  that  of  its  own  motion  it 
produces  these  results ;  makes  money  scarce,  interest  high,  and 
wages  low,  to  suit  those  who  run  it. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  history  of  commercial  "  crises"  which  occur  at 
intervals  in  America  and  Europe,  but  most  frequently  in  Great 
Britain  ;  for  there,  exclusive  money  has  assumed  its  most  despotic 
form  in  a  "  specie  basis,"  which,  oscillating  with  every  whim  of  the 
stock  exchange,  like  intermittent  shocks  of  earthquake,  inspires  con- 
stant terror  and  distrust.  As  India  is  the  source  of  cholera,  and 
Egypt  of  plague,  so  England  generates  "  panics  ;  "  and  a  few  leading 
bankers,  or  the  single  house  of  Rothschild,  can  start  a  system  of 
manoeuvres,  which,  sweeping  the  earnings  of  millions  into  their  coffers, 
will  carry  ruin  and  destitution  to  merchants,  manufacturers,  and 
aborers,  throughout  Christendom. 

Forced  currency  is  not  only  the  base  of  operations  for  sorties  of 
guerilla  war  and  legitimate  enterprise,  but  the  direct 
interest  and  indispensable  means  by  which  a  universal  and  per- 
organ-  petual  system  of  theft  is  organized  in  the  form  of  inter- 
ized  est  on  money.    What    a    stupendous   fraud  this  is,  few 

theft.  even  of  those  who  oppose  high  rates  seem  to  be  aware. 
The  net  annual  income  of  all  American  labor,  in  the  long 
run,  is  about  three  per  cent;  in  England,  two.  Our  whole  wealth 
in  18G0,  —  slaves  excluded,  —  was  fourteen  billion  one  hundred  and 
eighty-three  million  dollars ;  of  which,  twenty-six  and  eight-tenths 
per  cent  was  estimated  to  have  been  produced  in  that  single  year. 
Crediting  ten  per  cent  to  capital,  which  is  enough  to  allow  its  motive 
power  in  production,  leaves  sixteen  and  eight-tenths  per  cent;  or, 
one-sixth  part  of  the  wealth  accumulated  since  the  landing  of  the 
Pilgrims,  two  hundred  and  forty  years,  was  produced  by  labor  in 
that  one  year  18G0.  But  such  is  the  enormous  consumption,  the 
nation  devouring  itself  every  6ix  years,  that  the  net  average  annual 


TOURS  OR   MINE.  13 

income  is  but  three  per  cent.  Yet  the  income  of  bare  money, 
which  needs  no  food,  clothing,  or  shelter,  is  all  the  way  from  seven 
to  thirty  per  cent.  If  at  six  per  cent  interest,  we  double  capital  in 
the  hands  of  its  holders  every  eleven  3*ears,  at  the  expense  of  labor, 
think  of  the  monstrous  swindle  of  our  national-bank  system,  which 
nets  ten,  twelve,  and  even  twenty,  per  cent  out  of  the  nation's  credit. 
A  capitalist  depositing  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  bonds,  is 
constantly  paid  interest  on  those,  and  also  given  the  use  of  ninety 
thousand  dollars  in  currency.  If  a  young  man  wanting  to  go  into 
business  can  borrow  one  thousand  dollars,  with  wise  use,  it  will  be 
the  making  of  him  ;  yet  he  must  pay  interest  on  it.  But  government 
gives  these  banks  the  free  use  of  two  hundred  and  seventy  million 
dollars,  gives  outright  annually,  from  twenty-five  to  sixty  millions  to 
this  monopoly.  The  thirty-five  million  dollars  capital,  with  ex- 
clusive privilege,  of  the  old  United-States  Bank,  alarmed  the  nation 
and  revolutionized  government.  The  wrath  of  an  aroused  and 
defrauded  people  will  create  new  Andrew  Jacksons  to  abolish  the 
infinitely  more  oppressive  system  of  today.  Suppose  bondholders 
waive  their  present  purpose  to  make  the  war-debt  perpetual,  and 
postpone  its  payment  only  ninety  years?  It  amounts  now,  in  round 
numbers,  to  two  and  one-half  billions  ;  doubles  at  present  rates  (ten 
per  cent,  including  tax  exemption)  every  seven  and  a  half  j-ears ; 
would  amount  in  three  generations  to  ten  billion  two  hundred  and 
fifty  million  dollars,  and  we  should  pay  it  five  thousand  times  over. 
But  the  profits  which  a  special  class  clear  through  the  continuance 
of  the  debt,  are  a  drop  to  the  ocean,  when  compared  with  the  bound- 
less system  of  extortion,  which,  through  usury,  rents,  and  dividends, 
devour  the  peoples'  earnings.  Property  in  the  Union  now  amounts 
to  twenty  billions  ;  which,  reckoning  the  original  land  nothing,  com- 
prises the  net  earnings  of  American  labor  during  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years.  Yet,  on  present  rates,  interest,  which  earns  nothing, 
would  absorb  this  whole  property  in  nine  years.  Thus,  by  the  per- 
petual value  and  increase  allowed  money,  capitalists  acquire  a  kind 
of  supernatural  power  over  laborers  ;  so  that  a  man  of  one  generation 
can  tax  all  future  generations  with  the  support  of  his  offspring  ;  and 
interest  is  the  golden  chain  which  binds  the  Prometheus  industry,  in 
order  that  vultures  of  moneyed  aristocracy  may  feed  on  its  vitals. 

Furthermore,    within  this  single  word  is  coiled  the  mainspring  of 
monopoly  and  speculation,  the  motive-power  of  fraud  and 
mastership,   which  gives  overseers  and  capitalists  their     interest 
despotic  advantage,  and  makes  money  only  another  name     compels 
for   tyranny.     Legalized  theft,  interest,  consecrates  rob-    high 
bery  as  a  principle,   and  enforces  the  practice  of  it  on    prices. 
the  community.     Money  being  the  exponent  of  property, 
the  rate  of  interest,  which  is  the  price  of  money,  determines  the  price 
of  everything  else  ;  or,  at  least,  the  price  below  which   things  cannot 
be  sold,  unless  dealers  break  and  their  assets  are  knocked  off  under 
forced  sales.     Real  estate,  rents,  provisions,  clothing,  all  vendible 
commodities,  are  now  excessively  high,  chiefly  because  interest   is 
excessively  exorbitant.     Cost   of  capital  is  a  part  of  the  running 
expenses,  and  must  be  added  to  the  price  of  what  one  produces  or 


14  YOURS   OR  MINE. 

sells.  When  prices  range  above  the  means  of  people  to  buy ; 
that  is,  when  usury  takes  more  out  of  him  than  he  can  get  out  of 
consumers,  he  "fails,"  and  money-dealers  kindly  devour  him.  Thus, 
from  the  usurer  to  the  shoulders  of  the  manufacturer  or  farmer ; 
thence,  to  the  shoulders  of  the  trader,  who  passes  it  on  to  the  con- 
sumer ;  this  burden  is  shifted,  until,  like  poor  Sinbad,  bestridden 
by  the  old  man  of  the  sea,  laborers,  under  the  whole  weight  of  the 
swindle,  appear  the  bowed  and  dilapidated  creatures  you  see  in 
factories  and  on  street-corners.  It  is  estimated  that  machinery  in 
England  does  the  work  of  eight  hundred  million  men  ;  that  in  Europe, 
steam  alone  trebled  human  power  during  the  last  generation. 
Yet  the  vast  energies  of  inventive  genius  are  compelled  to  serve 
class  interests  by  money  monopoly.  Interest  now  pays  so  much 
larger  profits  in  bonds  and  stocks,  than  in  productive  enterprise, 
that  capital  inevitably  flows  there.  A  few  wealthy  manufacturers 
and  merchants,  in  alliance  with  banks,  thereby  secure  immense 
incomes,  but  crush  out  smaller  ventures,  intimidate  young  men 
from  going  into  business,  and  impoverish  people  generally. 

Through  systematic  monopoly  of  land  and  money,  English  capital- 
ists, for  centuries,  have  compelled  Irish  people  to  pay  over 
absen-         most  of  their  earnings  in  the  form  of  rent  and  interest. 
teeism.         In  extending  the  franchise,  Parliament  took  care  to  au- 
thorize   "  household,"   not  citizen,  suffrage  ;  —  land  and 
money  dominate,  society  is  vassal  ;  every  blade  of  grass  and  bank- 
bill  votes,  but  no  man  yet.     What  England  is  to  Ireland,  the  cities  of 
this  and  other  nations,  or  rather  the  usurers,  bondlords,  and  stock- 
holders residing  therein,  are  to  laborers,  —  absentee  capitalists,  who 
reap  where  they  have  not  sown,  and  gather  where  the}r  have  not 
strewn.     Hence,  five  per  cent  of  our  city  population  now  own  more 
property  than  the  other  ninety-five  per  cent ;   and  ten  per  cent  of  the 
Union,  more  than  ninety  per  Cent.     Factory  corporations  ;  coal,  iron, 
and  copper  mining  ;  railroads  ;  express  and  telegraph  companies,  are 
avowedly  controlled  to  enable  absentee  "  owners  "  (who  manufacture 
"  supply  and  demand  "  to  suit  themselves),  to  take  all  products  above 
what  in  barely  necessary  to  keep  alive  the  laborers  thereon.     Loud 
clamorcrs  for  "protection,"  practice  free  trade  in  human  beings  ;  for 
their  agents  in  Canada,  Europe,  Asia,  collect  and  forward  laborers  to 
crowd  down  wages  here.     In  the  stately  mansion  of  the  capitalist, 
crowning  every  desirable  eminence,  with  humbler  dwellings  of  "  the 
people  "  spread  around  its  base,  we  see  dark  barbarisms  of  the  feudal 
ages  resident  among  us.     And  if,  obedient  to  the  same  spirit  which 
induced  Luther,  Hampden,  and  Washington  to  resist  wrong  in  their 
day,  workers  ask  more  pay,  public  opinion  branding  it  as  a  "  strike," 
allows  the  capitalist  to  go  up  to   his   gorgeous   mansion,    and  the 
laborer  to  go  down  to  his  hovel  and  his  grave.     An  English  sovereign, 
invested  by  "  the  man  in   the  moon  "at  six  per  cent  compound  in- 
terest, in  the  year  one  of  the  Christian  era,  would  amount  now  to  a 
mass  of  gold  bigger  than  the  earth  ;   ami  our  laws  would  surrender 
this  planet  to  him  as  his  "  property."     Slavery  sold  the  body  of  labor 
on  the  auction-block  ;   interest  gets  the  use  of  that  body  without  the 
responsibility  or  expense  inseparable  from  ownership.     The  net   an- 


TOURS   OR  MINE. 


15 


nual  income  of  a  man's  work  is,  say  one  hundred  dollars.  One  thousand 
dollars,  "  well  invested,"  pays  at  least  one  hundred  dollars  annual  divi- 
dend ;  hence  the  holder  of  a  thousand-dollars  investment  owns  a  man  ; 
smaller  holders  own  women  and  children  to  the  extent  of  what  they 
will  "  yield."  Thus,  while  we  have  freed  four  millions  of  one  kind  of 
slaves,  interest  holds  such  an  infinitely  greater  number  of  human 
chattels,  that  to  this  complexion  it  has  come  at  last,  we  are  all 
negroes  now.  With  all  its  abominations,  the  Southern  idea  produced 
immense  wealth  ;  but  interest  is  a  purloining  system  ;  for,  just  in 
proportion  as  absentee  capitalists  flourish,  agriculture,  manufactures, 
and  commerce,  industry,  in  all  its  manifold  relations,  is  crippled  and 
defrauded. 

The  effect  of  tariffs  and  other  indirect  revenues  is  to  exempt  prop- 
erty, and  throw  the  burden  of  taxation  on  labor.  But  the 
startling  facts  and  cogent  arguments  of  our  free-trader  indirect 
friends  are  even  more  potent  against  our  financial  and  taxation. 
private  revenue  laws.  The  annual  sales  of  merchandize 
alone  in  the  States  are  reported  to  be  ten  billion  dollars  ;  reckoning 
two  per  cent  as  the  amount  which,  over  and  above  service  and  risk,'  is 
paid  for  the  use  of  capital,  we  have  two  hundred  million  dollars  annual 
tax  assessed  on  trade  by  a  moneyed  aristocracy,  for  which  not  one  dol- 
lar's worth  of  actual  service  is  rendered.  In  chartering  railroad  com- 
panies, government,  by  its  right  of  "  eminent  domain,"  generally  limits 
their  dividends  to  ten  per  cent ;  but  all  leading  lines  pay  immensely 
more  than  that.  Fares  and  freights  have,  of  course,  been  reduced 
accordingly,  or  the  surplus  paid  into  the  public  treasury ;  not  a  bit  of 
it.  The  companies,  by  a  process  of  "  watering,"  as  it  is  called,  or  in 
plain  English,  by  forging  new  stock,  have  pocketed  the  surplus,  and 
now  collect  ten  per  cent  tax,  both  on  the  original  and  the  bogus  stock 
Thus  the  Boston  and  Albany  road  are  reported  (N.  A.  Review,  Janu- 
ary, 1869,)  to  have  stolen  two  million  dollars  on  which  travel  and  trans- 
portation now  pay  them  an  annual  tax  of  two  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
Vanderbilt  forged  some  twent}T-two  millions  of  stock  on  the  Hudson 
River,  Harlem,  and  New- York  Central  roads,  in  which  the  annual  in- 
come at  the  same  rate  would  be  two  million  two  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  The  Second,  Third,  Sixth,  and  Eighth  Avenue  Horse- 
Railroads  of  New- York  City  are  said  to  have  thus  increased 
their  stock  fourfold,  and  thereby  net  from  thirty  to  fifty  per  cent 
annual  profit  on  the  original  investment ;  while  wages  paid  to 
their  conductors  and  drivers  for  twelve  and  sixteen  hours  daily  ser- 
vice, are  not  sufficient  to  feed  and  clothe  their  families  decently.  An 
humble  employe  steals  a  nail ;  Massachusetts  law  lays  hands  on  him. 
A  president  or  director  plans  and  shares  the  theft  of  two  million  dol- 
lars ;  we  pay  him  an  annual  premium  on  the  amount  stolen,  send  him 
to  Congress,  or  make  him  governor.  These  illustrative  items,  with 
the  vast  amount,  annually  gathered  in  cities  and  towns  from  rent  of 
land,  tenement,  and  warehouse  privileges,  not  for  work  done,  but  on 
property  which  has  paid  for  itself  many  times  over ;  with  the  legal 
right  of  money  to  even  one  per  cent  as  interest,  opening  a  wide  and 
effectual  door  to  speculation,  and  increasing  the  price  of  commodities 
on  an  average  five  per  cent ;   with   the  moral  sanction  thus  given  to 


16  TOURS   OR  MINE. 

Vanderbilt,  Fisk,  Jr.,  Belmont,  and  lesser  operators,  to  "  make  "  mil- 
lions in  a  day,  furnish  a  glimpse  of  how  the  single  wrong  principle, 
that  one  may  take  more  than  he  gives,  masses  currency,  banks,  lands, 
mines,  railroads,  factories,  coerced  labor,  all  the  sources  and  instru- 
mentalities of  wealth  into  one  gigantic  system,  to  compel  our  people 
to  pay  tribute  to  the  centralizing  power  of  usurped  property. 

Having  discovered  the  true  basis  of  property,  and  the  causes  of  its 
unequal  distribution,  we  will  now  glance  at  methods  and 
kecon-        measures  of  reconstruction.     When  the  popular  god  gets 
struc-        into  a  tight  pinch,  good  women  and  men  are  usually  on 
tion.  hand  to  help  him  oat ;  when  traditional  expressions  of 

truth  —  the  church,  the  state  —  are  captured  by  invad- 
ing evil,  natural  right,  the  ever-living  Overruler,  incarnate  in  human 
forms,  goes  forth  again  to  redeem  the  world.  Intuition  and 
memory,  idealism  and  institutionalism,  competition  and  co-operation, 
vigilant  self-interest  and  collective  right,  these  are  the  two  feet  on 
which  the  race  gets  forward,  the  two  hands  with  which  we  wrestle 
that  good  not  understood,  called  "  evil."  The  devil  himself  is  said  to 
be  the  great  "  second  best,"  and  "  evil,  the  cold  end  of  good."  It  is 
probable  that  the  cruellest  instances  of  social  injustice  are  the  fruit  of 
wrong  relations.  Of  course,  Deity  understood  the  business  of  crea- 
tion, made  law  right  at  first,  and  has  neA'er  changed  His  mind.  How 
prison  and  poor-house  could  be  sincerely  thought  "  institutions," 
—  permanent  apartments  in  the  social  establishment,  —  how  God 
could  have  created  men,  masquerading  in  the  livery  of  progress,  de- 
praved and' infidel  enough  to  say,  enforced  poverty  and  degradation 
of  labor  is  "  necessary ;  "  that  is  the  mystery.  Had  we  not  enshrined 
covetousness  and  theft  in  church  and  state,  paupers  would  be  un- 
known, and  men  "would  not  steal,  even  if  you  should  pay  them  for 
doing  it." 

Since  the  privilege  of  association  is  a  fundamental  necessity  of  free 
institutions,  no   one  can   disprove  the   right  or  duty  of 
combina-    workers  to    form  unions  for   their  own  protection ;  but 
tion.  they  should  not  waste  their  strength  in  abortive  expe- 

dients. What  revolutions  are  in  government,  strikes  are 
to  business,  sometimes  serviceable,  often  necessary,  but  never  justifi- 
able, except  as  the  last  resort  of  invaded  right.  Even  then,  if  suc- 
cessful, the  gain  is  temporary,  for  the  battle  must  be  fought  over 
again  next  season.  Hence  combinations  of  laborers  to  raise  wages, 
or  combinations  of  capitalists  to  reduce  them,  but  aggravate  and  per- 
petuate existing  antagonisms.  The  effort  to  reduce  the  hours  of 
labor  is  founded  in  justice,  beneficent  in  purpose,  but  can  perma- 
nently succeed  only  by  abolishing  the  legal  usurpations  of  property, 
and  securing  to  all  parties  a  free  contract.  Co-operation,  —  the  most 
beneficent  word  this  age  has  contributed  to  literature, —  as  generally 
interpreted,  means  only  a  widening  basis  of  advantage-taking  capital- 
ism, introduces  no  new  principle,  and  is  powerless  to  solve  the  labor 
problem.  You  oppose  "  capitalists  ;  "  and  yet,  to  become  a  capitalist, 
to  join  the  enemy,  is  victory.  If  we  are  to  be  swindled,  why  not  by 
one  as  well  as  by  a  hundred  men?  Like  the  old  protective  union- 
store  movement,  which  spread  over  New  England  years  ago,  it  will 


TOURS   OR  MINE.  1 ' 

succumb ;  for  monopoly,  as  now  entrenched,  is  master  of  the  situation. 
While  gambling  is  the  underlying  principle  of  business,  Jay  Cooke 
and  John  Morrissey  will  outwit  smaller  operators.     The  partnership 
of  labor,  recognizing  natural  leaders  in  business,  making  men  respon- 
sible in  proportion  to  their  power,  and  allowing  all  to  share  results 
in  proportion  to  their  contributions  of  labor  or  property,  is  more  likely 
to  succeed.     A  new  party  on  old  principles,  whether  of  "  the  people 
or  "  working-men,"  could  if  succeed,  would  prove  only  a  change  of 
masters.     In  the  falling  out  of  rogues,  some  honest  men  might  come 
to  their  own  ;  but  that  would  not  destroy  the  principle  of  roguedom. 
Since  the  evil  we  seek  to  eradicate  is  fundamental,  the  remedy  must 
be  radical  and  comprehensive.    When  William  H.  Sylvis,  the  honored 
president  of  the  National  Labor  Union  admonished  the  Working-men's 
State  Assembly   of  New  York  that  they  would  fail,   unless   they 
addressed  themseKes  to  the  great  problems   of  finance,   he  uttered 
grave  truth,  eloquently  and  impressively  stated.     We  present  issues  to 
which  people  will  leap  like  dust  of  iron  to  magnet,  and  ultimately  be 
marshalled  in  the  coming  labor  party.     But  you  cannot  pick  a  newly- 
furnished  house  out  of  a  lumber-yard,  or   find  broadcloth  suits  in  a 
wool-sack ;  artistic  processes    must  convert  the  raw  material  into 
desired  results.     So  a  revolution  in  the  ideas  of  trade,  of  finance,  and 
of  honesty  itself,  must  prepare  the  way  for  party  action.     First  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.     While,  therefore, 
the  time  for  general  success  in  politics  has  not   come,  the  time  for 
moral  action,  the   time  to   move  on  the  enemies'  works,  has  come. 
By  petitions,  conventions,  lectures,  tracts,  newspapers,  and   concen- 
trating our  votes  on  measures  and  men   favorable  to  productive  ser- 
vice, we  make  right  public  opinion,  and  stereotype  it  into  statutes, 
But  no  organization  can  or  ought  to  succeed  until  you  have  an  honest 
idea  to  run  it. 

Most  men  were  unoubtedly  born,  but  few  ever  get  into  the  world. 
Imprisoned  within  the  four  walls  of  ignorance,  poverty, 
superstition,    and    prejudice;    shut   up    in  factories,   in        compe- 
shops,  stores,  or  serfs  on  land,  the  mass  do  not  share  the        tition. 
life  free  institutions  were  intended  to  afford.     The  most 
atrocious  claim  of  slavery  was  its  asserte  d  right  to  sacrifice  men  to 
property.     Abolishing  one  form  of  that  claim,  it  is  but  the  initiative 
step  in  a  revolution  which  will  strip  property  of  its  purloining  power, 
and  make  it  the  loyal  servant  of  creative  intelligence.     Before  the 
war,  an  able-bodied,  intelligent  laborer  at  the  South,  would  "  bring 
two  thousand  dollars  ;  under  our  conscription  law,  the  commutation- 
fee  was  three  hundred  dollars ;  those  lacking  in  patriotism,  or  having 
too  much    of  it,  could  pay  that,  and  be  let  off;  that  is,  the  price- 
current  of  an   honest  able  man   North,  was  three  hundred  dollars. 
If  a  fat,  handsome  factory  horse  dies,  to  the  whole  corporation  it  is  an 
expensive  bereavement.     If  a  man  tumbles  from  the  fifth  story,  to  be 
taken  up  dead,  or  is  drawn  and  quartered  in  the  machinery,  a  dozen 
others  will  beg  for  the  chance  to  be  killed  the  next    day  at   one 
dollar  and  a  half  each.     Human  life  is  cheaper,  under  the  capital 
system,  than  it  was  under  the  chattel  system.     Omnipresent,  irre- 
sponsible property,  is  a  many-headed  master,  empowered  to  increase 


18  YOURS   OR   MINE. 

inimitably  at  labor's  expense.  To  talk  of  free  competition  under 
present  laws,  is  as  absurd  as  it  would  have  been  to  expect  free  labor 
inside  the  old  slave  system.  If  a  new  railroad  is  chartered  for 
the  "  public  benefit,"  the  old  lines  combine,  buy  it  up,  and  raise  fares 
all  around.  If  a  new  express  starts,  it  "  co-operates  "  with  the  old 
ones.  If  a  man  opens  a  provision-market  or  coal-yard,  old  dealers 
conciliate,  or  drive  him  from  the  field.  Over  all  is  a  banking-system, 
able  to  crush  any  enterprise,  large  or  small,  and  make  money  out  of 
it.  What  are  free  speech,  free  press,  free  trade,  in  the  presence  of 
Vanderbilt  with  his  railroads,  backed  by  seventy  millions  ?  What  is  a 
feudal  baron,  or  an  English  landholder,  compared  with  the  super- 
intendent of  a  corporation,  who,  president  of  a  national  bank,  and 
wanting  to  go  to  Congress,  can  say  to  his  four  thousand  "  hands  "  :  — 
"  Break  up  your  trades-unions,  vote  for  me,  or  leave  the  mill  and  go 
home  to  starving  families ! "  What  papal  domination  was  to 
Luther ;  what  the  Stuarts  were  to  Puritans  ;  what  George  III.  was 
to  the  colonies  ;  what  slave  oligarchy  was  to  republicanism,  —  that 
our  money-system  is  to  legitimate  enterprise.  Approved  b}^  morals, 
defended  by  political  economists,  consecrated  in  law  and  public 
opinion,  overreaching  makes  society  a  conspiracy  against  an  honest 
man. 

Though  he  never  studied  mechanics,  an  ox  yet  understands  the 
fact  of  gravitation,   as  well  as   Newton,  and  cannot   be 
labor  driven   off   a   precipice.      Constructing  its   cell   strictly 

for  according  to  the  principles  of  solid  geometry,  a  bee  three 

labor.  months  old,  knows  higher  mathematics  than  most  college 
students  ever  climb  to.  So,  surely,  will  the  instincts  of 
men  gravitate  towards  law,  order,  and  fair-dealing.  If  they  can 
be  trained  to  peril  life  and  limb  in  fire-companies,  if  they  can 
be  trained  in  armies  to  stand  up  and  be  shot  at  for  thirteen  dollars  a 
month,  can  they  not  be  trained  to  be  honest?  When  Ave  meet  as 
brothers,  lovers,  friends,  who  does  not  scorn  to  take  advantage  of 
another?  who  would  not  blush,  if  he  charged  anything,  to  take  more 
than  the  bare  cost  of  service?  These  necessities  to  cheat,  exist  by 
statute,  not  by  nature.  Broadly  stated,  the  objects  of  labor-reform 
are  opportunity  and  reciprocity  ;  to  "  live,  and  let  live,"  co-operation, 
based  on  the  utmost  liberty  to  create,  and  on  equity  in  the  exchange 
of  products,  the  world  over.  If  society  exists  for  anything,  it  is  to 
guarantee  the  security  of  persons  and  property  ;  that  one  who  works 
for  a  thing  shall  get  it,  and  hold  it,  if  he  chooses.  But  the  right  of 
men  in  multitude  or  unitude  to  hold  or  sell  what  they  do  not  earn,  the 
genius  of  fraud  and  mastership  which  overrules  and  falsifies  all 
human  affairs,  must  be  exterminated  from  off  the  planet.  If  one 
writes  a  book,  or  invents  a  machine,  government  allows  the  patent 
or  copyright  to  run  until  he  is  fairly  rewarded  for  his  work  ;  no  longer. 
A  father  ceases  to  control  the  earnings  of  his  daughter  at  eighteen  ; 
of  his  son,  at  twenty-one.  Yet  property  compels  working-people  to 
pay  perpetual  tribute  to  its  unrighteous  usurpations.  As  is  well 
known,  most  of  the  government  bonds  were  purchased  at  from  forty 
to  sixty  cents  on  a  dollar,  in  gold ;  and  have  drawn  on  the  full  cur- 


YOURS   OR  MINE.  19 

•  rency  amount,  interest  in  gold  equalling  from  eight  to  twenty  per  cent 
in  currency,  on  the  original  gold  investment.  Not  to  mention  that 
interest  being  essentially  extortion,  all  claims  to  exact  it  are  morally 
wrong,  and  therefore  void  ;  not  to  urge  that,  according  to  the  laws 
against  usury,  above  certain  rates  at  that  time,  in  almost  every  state 
of  the  Union,  both  principle  and  interest,  are  forfeited  ;  consider  the 
fact,  that  the  full  amount  originally  loaned  to  government  will  soon, 
in  interest,  have  been  more  than  paid.  When  labor  has  been  fully 
returned  for  labor,  those  who  think  that  debt  can  be  perpetuated, 
know  little  of  the  claims  of  justice,  or  of  the  spirit  to  resist  oppres- 
sion which  lives  in  the  hearts  of  the  American  people.  That  recent 
purchasers  of  bonds  may  not  suffer,  it  should  be  assessed  upon  the 
whole  property  of  the  people,  and  discharged  at  once.  These  em- 
pires of  mining  and  prairie  lands  "  given  "  by  Congress  and  states 
to  corporations,  must  be  returned  to  their  rightful  owners  those, 
and  those  only,  who  can  till  them.  One  failing  to  show  a  deed  from 
the  Creator,  that  is,  a  labor-title,  has  no  more  right  to  hold  land,  [than 
to  hold  slaves. 

But  since,  under  present  money  laws,  those  given  lands  cannot 
live  on  them,  the  one  indispensable  means  to  enable  all  to 
create  and  hold  property,  is  free  currency.  The  use  of  free 
one's  credit,  as  of  his  conscience,  or  his  vote,  is  a  natural  money 
right,  antecedent  to,  and  independent  of,  government. 
The  evil  of  existing  sj-stems  does  not  reside  entirely  in  that  de- 
lusive cheat,  a  "  specie  basis,"  but  also  in  enforced  paper  currency. 
The  right  to  make  any  kind  of  money  a  legal  tender,  which  is  not 
natural  tender,  receivable  on  its  own  merits,  is  purely  imaginary. 
For  government  to  issue  all  money  based  on  the  property  of  the 
people  is  a  usurpation  and  a  fallacy ;  it  is  usurpation,  because  the 
people  never  have,  and  never  can  place  their  property,  except  in  cases 
of  extreme  public  peril,  at  the  disposal  of  government ;  it  is  a  fallacy, 
because  such  money  is  irresponsible,  representing  neither  the  whole 
property  of  the  people,  nor  that  of  any  one  citizen.  "The  govern- 
ment "  is  composed  of  one  class  of  men  this  year,  and  another  next ; 
the  capitol,  the  department  biddings,  forts,  arsenals,  custom,  and  post, 
offices — these  comprise  its  "  property."  But  to  the  extent  of  its  legiti- 
mate business,  government  has  right  to  issue  money  based  on  service  ; 
and  we  therefore  favor  the  withdrawal  of  the  notes  of  the  national 
banks,  and  the  issue  instead  of  treasury  certificates  of  service,  re- 
ceivable for  taxes  and  bearing  no  interest.  These  would  never  de- 
preciate, because,  like  postage  stamps,  always  good  for  the  purpose 
proposed,  and  would  answer  the  uses  of  a  national  currency.  .  To 
render  monopoly  of  them  impossible,  to  demonitize  gold  and  silver, 
and  as  the  exercise  of  a  natural  right,  the  privilege  of  states,  com- 
munities, and  individuals  to  issue  money  on  their  own  responsibility, 
and  to  any  extent  they  deem  best,  must  never  be  surrendered. 
Whether  this  would  be  "  constitutional,"  I  do  not  pause  to  ask  ;  hav- 
ing amended  the  Federal  constitution  to  abolish  one  kind  of  slavery 
South,  we  can,  if  need  be,  amend  it  to  abolish  other  kinds  of  slavery 
North. 


20  YOURS   OR  MINE. 

Thus,  marching  on  Wall  Street  in  two  columns,  one  under  the  ban- 
ner of  "  Union,"  the  other  of  "  State  Rights,"  we  shall 
it  abolish  interest,  by  making  money  so  reliable  and  plenty, 

abol-  that  no  one  can  get  more  than  the  bare  cost  of  issuing  it. 

ishes  A  letter  dropped  in  a  Maine  office  is  carried  across  the 

interest,  continent  to  San  Francisco,  up  four  flights  of  stairs,  and 
delivered,  for  three  cents ;  because  that  is  the  average 
cost.  Containing  news  from  a  sick  friend  or  urgent  business  informa- 
tion, a  letter  would  "bring"  one  hundred  or  one  thousand  dollars; 
you  would  pay  that,  rather  than  not  have  it.  What  an  injustice  to 
speculate  on  letters  !  Yet  that  is  nothing  compared  with  the  incalcu- 
lable fraud  government  authorizes  and  sanctions  in  speculation  on 
money.  With  an  exclusive  currency,  usury  laws  are  not  worth  the 
paper  written  on.  The  only  way  to  protect  slaves  was  to  abolish 
mastership  ;  so  we  shall  remove  the  necessity  for  usury  laws,  by  anni- 
hilating despotic  money.  But  they  asked,  "  What  shall  we  do  with 
the  slaves? "  We  replied,  " Let  them  employ  their  masters,  and  pay 
honest  wages."  So  now,  the  question  is  not ;  whether  it  is  safe  to 
trust  people  with  their  earnings ;  safe  to  allow  farmers,  mechanics, 
and  merchants,  to  issue  and  manage  money  —  for  none  but  those  lack- 
ing faith  in  liberty  and  honesty,  will  ask  that  —  the  real  question  is  — 
what  shall  he  do  with  those  who  uphold,  defend,  and  fatten  on  this 
slave-money  system?  Based  on  actual  values,  issued  under  free 
banking  laws,  or  by  voluntary  associations,  on  principles  of  mutual 
insurance,  where  individuals  draw  against  property  and  labor,  regis- 
tered and  guaranteed,  as  banks  now  draw  against  bonds  deposited  ; 
and  cumulative  credit  is  represented  in  great  central  clearing-houses 
—  money  will  be  backed  by,  and  convertible  into,  the  only  thing  it 
was  ever  entitled  to  represent,  —  service  in  the  form  of  commodities. 
Gold,  like  gravel,  can  go  for  what  it  is  worth.  If  it  has  the  merits 
claimed,  it  will  stand  on  them  ;  but  the  fact  that  bullionists  urge  the 
intrusion  of  law  to  make  it  legal  tender,  is  confession  that  they 
have  no  faith  in  those  merits.  All  agree  that  the  price  of  money, 
like  that  of  other  things,  ultimately  must  be  the  cost  of  production. 
The  cost  of  ours  will  be  that  of  clerk  and  office  hire,  paper  and 
printing,  from  one-fourth  to  one  per  cent.  That  it  will  encounter 
and  put  to  flight,  both  in  argument  and  practice,  the  expensive  swin- 
dle of  bullionists,  we  have  not  the  least  doubt. 

A.  T.  Stewart's  note  is  good  ;  the  note  of  any  solid  man  in  j'our 
midst  is  good  ;  because,  known  and  definite,  value  backs 
it  lib-  it.  A  bill  of  exchange,  drawn  by  one  leading  house  on 
erates  another,  is  good  ;  every  new  indorser  increases  its  relia- 
business.  bility  in  geometrical  ratio.  We  propose  to  make  the  note 
of  hand  and  bill  of  exchange  universal.  Drafts,  checks, 
and  bills  of  exchange  already  constitute  the  wholesale  currency  of  the 
world  ;  bank-bills  and  coin,  the  retail.  Gold,  between  nations,  is  com- 
modity, not  money ;  the  government-mint  stamp  merely  shows  how 
much  bullion  it  contains.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  its  intrinsic 
utility,  —  which  is  far  less  than  that  of  iron,  and  the  world  could 
much  easier  get  on  without  it,  —  its  exclusive  use,  as  money,  is 
born  of  fraud  and  unscientific  confusion.     In  "  panic,"  the  assets  of 


TOURS  OR   MINE.  21 

merchants  are  more  reliable  than  those  of  banks  ;  government  coming 
to  the  rescue  of  business  by  allowing  banks  to  "  suspend  specie  pay- 
ment," is  simply  the  intervention  of  commodity  credit,  to  save  the 
sham  credit  of  bullionists,  when  their  •*  specie  basis  "  drops  into  the 
hoarder's  strong  box.  Even  in  "  specie  times,"  there  is  barely  more 
than  one  dollar  in  coin  in  the  vaults,  to  five  or  ten  paper  cheats  flying 
about  the  country.  Gold  fails  just  when  it  has  a  duty  to  perform. 
When  more  needed  than  in  1862  ?  Yet  just  then,  this  Mr.  "  Specie" 
deserted,  and  has  not  been  seen  since.  Mr.  "  Hard  Dollar  "  snuffs  a 
battle  further  than  a  war-horse,  remains  or  flies,  as  victory  inclines, 
to  or  from  the  flag  ;  because,  by  hypocritically  assuming  to  have  both 
representative  and  intrinsic  worth,  he  does  not  honestly,  as  money, 
have  either.  It  is  high  time  government  cease  inflicting  misery  on 
peoples  by  "  antiquated  prejudice  for  bits  of  yellow  dross."  Were 
there  less  noisy  tongues,  and  more  thinking  heads  at  Washington, 
there  would  be  an  end  of  this  talk  of  "  regulating  currency."  Regu- 
late wind  and  tide,  tornado  and  earthquake  ;  limit  the  amount  of  air 
for  the  lungs,  and  blood  for  the  veins,  of  fort}r  million  people,  but 
talk  not  of  regulating  money,  which  must  obey  the  higher  laws  of 
creative  energy.  Under  the  exclusive  system,  whose  avowed  purpose 
is  speculative  control,  increased  currency  goes  into  speculation,  and 
carries  up  prices.  But  pay  off  the  bonds,  abolish  interest  through 
free  banking,  and  you  force  money  into  legitimate  enterprise,  make 
increase  impossible,  except  as  it  passes  through  some  form  of  labor. 
That  increases  production ;  increase  the  supply,  and  prices  fall,  ex- 
cepting that  of  labor,  which  will  go  up ;  for  the  more  production,  the 
greater  the  demand  for  workers.  Depositors  in  savings-banks  would 
lose  their  small  gains  ;  but  putting  their  earnings  into  business,  they 
would  gain  a  hundred  dollars  where  they  lost  one  in  interest.  Hence, 
without  further  entering  the  discussion  of  finance,  which  is  not  the 
object  of  this  essa}7,  it  is  evident  that  free  money,  giving  full  play  to 
the  beneficent  laws  of  supply  and  demand,  would  offer  all  a  chance, 
bring  machinery  to  the  side  of  labor,  enlist  vast  and  varied  energies 
of  man  and  nature  lying  idle,  and  make  wealth  so  abundant,  and  ac- 
cessible, as  to  almost  shame  us  out  of  the  weakness  of  calling  any- 
thing "  ours." 

That  Mecca  of  sharpers,  the  cit}T,  now  a  desperate  scramble  of  well- 
dressed  gentlemen  to  get  more  than  they  give,  will  become 
an   equitable   agency  of  exchange,  a  free  public  market,     liberty 
where  producers  and  consumers  can  meet  without  the  ex-     and 
pensive  intrusion  of  advantage-takers,  who  now  combine    union. 
to  plunder  them  both ;  that  monument  of  unjust  taxa- 
tion, the  custom-house,  be  sent  down  to  keep  company  with  British 
taxed  tea,  at  the  bottom  of  the   harbor  —  our  protectionist  friends 
will   not,  of  course,  hesitate  to  put  their   principles   on   their   own 
merits,  and  collecting  the  needed  amount  by  direct  tax,  like  the  "  Freed- 
men's  Bureau  "  for  poor  negroes,  furnish  a  manufacturers'  bureau  to 
aid  destitute  capitalists  ;  travel  and  transportation,  now  invaded  by 
numberless   byway  and    highwaymen ;   railroad,  express,  and    tele- 
graph lines,  — all  must  cease  to  enrich  special  interests  at  popular  ex- 
pense, and  serve  the  general  welfare  at  cost.    Thence,  we  will  reach 


22  YOURS   OR  MINE. 

that  grand  consummation  to  which  civilization  tends,  —  free  land  and 
free  homes  ;  so  that  one  can  not  only  "  read  his  title  clear  to  man- 
sions in  the  skies,"  but  to  ground  to  stand  on,  and  a  roof  to  live 
under,  in  these  States.  Free  contracts,  free  money,  free  markets,  free 
transit,  and  free  land,  —  these  five  points  of  our  creed,  not  idle  theo- 
ries, but  asserted  as  what  we  believe,  and  for  no  other  reason  than 
because  we  believe  them,  are  living  issues,  to  be  test-questions  at  the 
ballot-box.  United  on  the  central  question  of  honest  money,  the 
mediator  between  capital  and  labor,  knowing  these  ends  are  a  com- 
mon need  and  a  common  right,  great  in  numbers,  strong  in  reason, 
national  labor  union  will  level  every  barrier  to  reach  them. 

But  it  is  union  to  liberate,  not  to  coerce ;  no  class  movement,  it 
fights  the  battle  of  the  manufacturer,  of  the  merchant,  of  the  farmer, 
of  legitimate  enterprise  in  all  its  manifold  relations  ;  promotes  that 
coincidence  of  interests,  which,  uniting  all  by  giving  each  back  to 
himself,  weds  individual  right  to  general  welfare,  and  makes  it  its  most 
powerful  coadjutor.  A  reform  to  conserve  ;  at  once  "  a  return  to  the 
past,  and  effort  towards  the  future,"  it  overcomes  evil  with  good, 
succors  the  weak  with  the  creative  energies  of  the  strong,  inspires 
the  greatest  of  all  to  serve  all,  and  hastens  the  day,  when  men  will 
have  neither  the  power  nor  the  wish  to  own  more  than  they  earn. 


LABOR  FOR  LABOR. 


A  project  is  on  foot  for  laying  out  new  towns  for  the 
direct  exchange  of  services  between  all  the  useful  classes  : 
cutting  off  all  speculations  and  giving  to  all  labor  its  full  and 
complete  compensation,  and  tending  towards  universal  co-opera- 
tion, peace,  and  abundance;  without  "communism"  or  any 
other  ism  or  organization  in  conflict  with  personal  liberty,  with- 
out disturbing  the  individual  ownership  of  property,  and  without 
diminishing  Individual  Responsibility. 

For  printed  documents,  giving  particulars,  commence 
with  sending  Ten  Cents  to  J.  "Warren,  Counsellor  in  Equity, 
Cliftondale,  Mass.  25  cents  required  for  each  page  of 
written  answers. 

Eefer  to  the  "  INDUSTRIAL  COUNCIL,"  Boston,  Mass. 
January,  1869. 


TRUE      CIVILIZATION. 

A  Profound  and  Elaborate  Exposition  of  the  Elementary  Prin- 
ciples of  Labor  Reform  and  Social  Science. 

BY   JOSIAH  WARREN. 
FRZOE,         SO         CENTO. 


3STEW   ENGLAJSfD 

MUTUAL  LIFE  INSURANCE  CO., 

TVo.     39    STATE    STREET, 
BOSTON. 

Accumulated    Fund,    Jan.    1,    1868. 
$3,200,000. 

SURPLUS  TO  BE  DISTRIBUTED  TO  MEMBERS, 
$763,000, 

to  be  allowed  in  settlement  of  notes  or  credited  in  payment  of  premium  where  parties  have 
paid  all  cash. 

DISTRIBUTIONS    l>Vt  A1LV. 

All  Policies  Non-Forfeitable  under  the  laws  of  Massachusetts  (See  Statute  of  April  10, 
1861.)  to  the  extent  of  their  value. 

The  following  Table  will  show  the  time  that  a  Life  Policy,  issued  by  this  Company,  will 
continue  in  fouce  after  the  annual  cash  payment  of  premium  has  ceased,  no  other  con- 
dition of  the  policy  being  violated.  Only  four  different  ages,  and  seven  payments  are  given; 
but  they  will  suffice  to  show  the  practical  working  of  the  law  referred  to  above. 

PAYMENTS    IN    CASH. 


Age 
when 

One 
Payment. 

Two 

Payments 

Three      1     Four 
Payments  Payments 

Five            Six 

Payments  Payments 

| 

Seven 
Payments 

insured. 

Yr.   |  Dys. 

Yrs.    |  Dys. 

Yrs.  |  Dys. 

Yrs.  |  Dys 

Yrs  |  Dys  Yrs  |  Dys 

Yrs  |Dys 

25 
30 

a5 

40 

293 

329 

1            3 

1          49 

1        228 

1  300 

2  12 
2         93 

2       170 

2  277 

3  27 
3        123 

3      119 

3  259 

4  46 
4      123 

4        72 

4  246 

5  56 
5        86 

5        31 

5  23S 

6  41 
6        16 

5  360 

6  229 
6    359 
6    276 

Policies  issued  to  the  amount  of 


$20,000 


on  a  single  lifo,  on  the  life  or  endowment  plan. 

This  Company  is  now  entering  upon  its  25th  year,  and  has  at  risk 

$50,000,000. 

This,  the  oldest  purely  Mutual  Lifo  Insurance  Company  in  the  United  States,  has  been 
uniformly  successful,  always  making  large  and  regular  returns  in  cash  to  all  policy-holders. 
Last  cash  dividend,  forty  per  cent.  It  is  strictly  an  institution  for  mutual  protection,  en- 
tirely beneficent  in  all  its  workings  and  tendencies. 

Economy,  cautious  in  its  risks,  and  prudent  investments,  characterize  this  Company. 
Being  purely  mutual,  it  insures  at  the  lowest  possible  rates,  and,  if  the  premiums  paid  exceed 
the  actual  cost,  the  surplus  is  returned. 

Parties  at  a  distance  may  insure  from  blanks,  which  will  bo  forwarded  free  of  expense. 

Documents  showing  the  benefits  of  Life  Insurance  with  tho  advantages  of  tho  Mutual 
Plan,  and  tho  superior  position  and  marked  success  of  this  Company,  and  explaining  tho 
different  kinds  of  Policies,  with  their  methods  of  paymont,  may  be  obtained,  free  of  expenso, 
upon  application,  either  personally  or  by  mail,  to  the  officers  or  agents  of  the  Compan}". 


BENJ.  F.  STEVENS,  President. 

Wm.  W.  Morland,  M.D.,  Modica.1  Examiner. 


JOSEPH  M.  GIBBENS,  Secretary. 
Walter  C.  Wright,  Actuary. 


UNITED  STATES  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY. 

ORGANIZED      1850. 

ASSETS     $3,000,000. 

New  and  important  plans  for  the  relief  of  old  ago  have  boon  adoptod  by  this  Company, 
whereby  policies  issued  on  tho  Life  rate  may  he  converted  into  Paid-up  or  Self-Endowing 
Policies.  Policy-holders  share  in  the  profits  without  incurring  any  of  the  liabilities  of  the 
Company.  Tho  last  dividend  was  fortv  percent  to  tho  policy-holders,  and  an  extra  of 
twenty  per  cent  on  all  previous  dividend*.    Activo  Agents  wautod  for  cities  and  country  . 

N.  E.  Branch  Office,  76  State  Street,  Boston. 
E.    J.    LONG    &  CO.,    GENERAL   AGENTS. 


THE     ESTABLISHED    SUCCESS 


OF  \VF  W  THE 


WTLLCOX    &    GIBBS 
Silent  Family  Sewing  Machine, 

And  the  large  increase,  in  sales  for  the  past  eight  years,  has  fully  established  the 
beal  advantage  of  a  simple  Family  Sewing  Machine,  and  peoved  the  buperiob 
mebit  of  the 

TWISTED    LOOP   STITCH. 

The  WILLCOX  &  GIBBS  is  now  one  of  the  most  popular  Machines  in  the 
market.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  a  larger  proportion  of  the  Willcox  &  Gibbs  give  more 
perfect  satisfaction,  than  any  other  machine,  because  every  one  can  use  it,  it  is 
always  in  order,  and  ig  capable  of  doing  a  greater  variety  of  work,  than  any  other 
Family  Sewing  Machine. 

Jg|p"  We  keep  first-class  Secondhand  Machines  in  perfect  order  to  rent  by  the 
month;  also  sell  them  cheap,  with  privilege  of  returning,  at  same  price,  towards  any 
new  machine  at  any  reasonable  time. 

5^"  We  take  all  kinds  of  Sewing  Machines  in  exchange,  as  part  pay  for  ours, 

|j^*  We  attend  to  the  repairs  of  our  machines, 

COTTON  SILK,  NEEDLES,  AID  SEWIMAill  HJfftllfiS 

ALWAYS  ON   HAND. 

AGENTS  WANTED  IN  ALL  UNOCCUPIED  TERRITORY, 


WILLCOX    &    GIBBS 

SEWING  MACHINE  OFFICE, 

393     WASHINGTON     STREET, 

BOSTON. 


3  1205  00080  4995      JHUkPU 

JO  P. 

Two  Editions  —  Weekly  and  Monthly. 


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Labor  Books  and  Documents  always  on  sale  at  our  office.  French  and  German  print- 
ing done  to  order. 

All  kinds  of  machinery  and  other  wood  cuts  engraved  and  electrotyped  very  cheap. 

We  are  desirous  of  opening  comnpiupication  with  every  Trade  Cnion  in  the  land,  and 
should  be  glad  to  heaf  by" lettgr,  ;or .personal  interview,  from  every  working  man  or 
woman  who  has  given  the  Labor-question  Any  thought. 

The  "AMERICAN  WORKMAN"  is  the  best  advertising  mediun  of  its  class  in  the 
country,.    It  reaches  the  Shoemakers  of  America  moro  generally  than  any  other  paper. 

Send  ten  cents,  and  we  will  mail  you  Specimen  copies  of  the  AMERICAN  WORKMAN. 

jgpWe  offer  good  inducements  for  Clubs.    Our  Premium  List  sent  free. 


Address, 


AMERICAN  WORKMAN  PUBLISHING  CO., 


37£,  COBNHILL,   BoSTOM. 


OCR  PRINTING  OFF"  ICE  is  "  run  »  in  the  interest  of  Labor;    and  every  kind  of 

JOB     PRINTING 

will  be  Neatly,  Cheaply,  Expeditiously,  and  if  necessary,  Confidentially  printed.    Wo 
give  special  attention  to  printing 

Blanks  and  By-laws  for  Secret  Societies,  Lodges,  &c. 

as  well  as  Co-operative  Stores  and  Manufactories. 

CALL  AT  37j,  CORNHILL,  BOSTON. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    000  769  996 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


BICFEB  1J?9« 


»P3    7ftT- 


JfOm  NOV  Z  6  )997 
*0|D  NOV  181997     2 


